What a lucky guy.
I was wondering what you guys where up to at AZ. E. Fest.
Hunkered down around his wings.
You guys looked like you where having a sťance.
Now know you where calling forth your new wing

Larry are you coming out in january?
I am doing a 2 fer sale ,so you can build one and join the wing mayhem in january.
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Quote:

Originally Posted by SPFD-E-FLYER

What a lucky guy.
I was wondering what you guys where up to at AZ. E. Fest.
Hunkered down around his wings.
You guys looked like you where having a sťance.
Now know you where calling forth your new wing

Would love to come out again this year but with the new girl, think I'm going to have a hard time getting away. My buddy George is already trying to lay the ground work with my wife. Don't think shes buying it.
Never say never though.
If not this year, see y'all in 09
Wonder what I'll be flying then
Larry

Well, wind permitting I'll be maidening my new TL50 this week...maybe even tomorrow.
Been down for days with one of those antibiotic-resistant staph infections. Damned thing tried to kill me but after two stops at the ER and three BIG IV doses of anti-B's and now followup oral stuff for a couple of weeks I'm feeling quite a bit better. Don't wanna do that again for a while I'll tell ya.
Ennyways, the 50 came in at 53 ounces AUW and only took 3/4 of an ounce of lead in front of the battery to balance perfectly at 8" from the nose. Chris already had it perfectly trimmed when I first turned it on and I didn't have to do a bit of adjustment except for balancing. The XPS radio system is running on a 2s 800mah lipo through a Hyperion BEC.
If all goes well for its maiden, the first public flight will be at Woody's WildWingsII fly-in in El Centro this Saturday.
Chris, did you get an invite?

I just got back from lunch. I usually have my Mini Ultra stick in the truck for lunchtime at a large park here on Coronado and went down there to get n a couple of flights. Thing is, I also have the TL50 along for the aprez-work maiden. I took a fun MUS flight and was standing in the middle of a baseball diamond stretching my fingers when "that" feeling came over me. Ok...just a test throw. You know...to see how she glides. Yeah, riiiight.
Went back to the truck and pulled out the wing, loaded up the flight and rx batteries, changed to 2.4gig and headed well downwind into the park. Hardly anyone there. Plugged everything in and did a range check. AOK. Felt the weight and thought, "I can't throw trhis thing hard enough to get a good glide even into a nice breeze so I brought the throttle up some and gave it a heave.

HOLY , Batman!! I had forgotten to drop the rates 50% and only added 30% expo. It flipped up on one wing then the other and to make matters worse, it had some downtrim right off the bat. By now I'm running out of park, trying to get control of this thing and drop the throttle a little all at the same time. I concentrated on getting some altitude while curving to the left to keep it in the park. Ok. Got some uptrim into her to counter the dive and two kliques right to level her out. Time to turn again as she's almost out to the bay...into the wind and the thumbs are settling in. Drop the throttle a little more and make another trip around now that I have the throws figured. Bring it around, chop the throttle and land in the grass 20 feet from me. Ok. Crap. Unplug and go sit down. Drop dual rates to 50% and increase expo to 50%. Take a couple of turns on the clevices and readjust the trim a little to compensate. Heartbeat is manageable and I'm not shaking like a leaf like I was ten minutes ago. Hmmm. Try this again.

Plug back in, stand up and walk out from the bench about twenty feet, give it a little throttle and a hard heave. She's off nice and pretty and completely manageable. Got some good altitude and tooled around under half throttle for a few laps, bright her in and another nice landing ten feet from me. Jeez. That's enough for one lunchtime. I can hardly wait to get to the club field after work!

Now that's the job to have. A BIG shop to work at, with state of the art tools at hand and at lunch time you get to play with your favorite toys. Unless you're retired (like me) and can go play anytime.
Way to go Mark. Oh what a feeling.

I did that after work on the way home at the club field next to Sea World.

Put my membership tag on the board and intro'd myself to a new guy that was prepping an Easy Star. Walked back to the truck, popped in a new batt and hit the next station. The guy smiled at me and said, "Nice Zagi." I blipped the throttle at him, said "Yeah" and launched.

Tooled around getting the feel of it then throttled up over Sea World, rolled over and dove for the field going WOT right past his glider down the middle of the runway going downwind. Pulled straight up with five vertical rolls, leveled out at who knows how high and did a few more rolls to get used to the rate. By this time I'm back over Sea World again so another half roll, pulled and hit WOT again. By this time the newb was well out of harm's way. Down the runway, pull up and roll going out. Time for a cooldown and not push my luck any further. Head for final, completely chop the throttle and promptly hit Area 51 out at the NE corner of the field 300 yards out. Damn! She quits listening does a dip, jump, rolls and spirals in.

Expecting the worst, I head out on the Walk Of Shame. Hunh. Looks okay. Prop intact. Nose a little wrinkled and a small split on either side of the propcut. Nothing some clear packing tape and an iron can't fix. These things are TOUGH, bro!